Fall is in the air and the lit wick of my pumpkin harvest candle is signaling the return to all that is warm and cozy. A new season is upon us, though it remains a continuation of what is turning out to be a woefully prolonged season of pandemic.

As Covid-19 surges, the summer of hope has ended in gloom. Or so the headlines read. We were so ready for the new-found freedom of vaccines to liberate us from the tyranny of the virus, but here we are again back to overwhelmed hospitals and alarming death tolls. Lord, in your mercy.

It is disheartening, numbing, maddening. I haven't even wanted to think about it.

And yet, hope persists.

In a world that makes sense less and less — a world that seems hell bent on the decimation, brokenness, and fragmentation of relationship on every level, strata, and sphere — a world that is rife with chaos, violence, upheaval, and turmoil, we stand firmly in a Love that is redeeming all things. Our story is the greatest story ever told. We must not forget that Love is the most powerful force in the world. God, our Creator, Liberator, Restorer, Comforter and Friend is the very essence and embodiment of Love, and Love will win the day. So in the midst of spiritual, political, environmental, social, and economic devastation, we can hold onto fierce and stubborn hope.

In fact, we know from history that it is precisely in these moments of great societal upheaval that the Spirit breaks out in new and powerful ways to forward God's work of renewal and transformation on the earth. The great expansion of the gospel in the first few centuries of the early church was birthed in tumultuous times of oppression, war, persecution, and pandemic. So though the earth is groaning and heaving with birth pains all around us, this is the time in which we as the church are called to embody Love on the earth.

For I believe that the Spirit is indeed birthing a new thing. Our American way is crumbling; and the North American church is flailing. We are desperately in need of reformation. This is why we as The Practicing Church remain committed to reimagining the church in the neighborhood. We must find ways to reconnect to the Real, to incarnate in our places, to embody our faith, and to be restorers of all that is good and holy and sacred in the world. We are called to offer hope in the midst of despair, mercy in the face of judgment, wholeness in the midst of great fragmentation, comfort in grief, vulnerability in shame, and peace in violence. We are called to reinterpret the gospel in our time and in our place as good news and healing for all that is broken.

Last month, we had the gift of attending a cohort through Sustainable Faith with other parish-style communities who are also dreaming, praying, and leaning into more embodied, holistic, and relational ways to be the church. We returned home more certain and encouraged that in fact God is unfolding a beautiful work in us. And so many all around the country and the globe are also responding to the invitation to follow the Spirit into a land unknown and unseen, hearing God's words, Behold, I am doing a new thing. [Isaiah 43:19]

A few months ago, I had the privilege of being interviewed for The Lean-In Podcast to share our story of embodying love and justice in our neighborhood and community. It was just released yesterday and I hope you will listen and share it with your networks, but mostly that your heart will be encouraged as you listen to God's work in and through us.

Earlier this year, we were featured in an article for Duke's Faith & Leadership publication. I continue to be amazed that our small community is being used to encourage and inspire others to repent, to reimagine, and to re-form what it means to be the church today. I am so amazed at God's goodness and faithfulness to us over and over again.

This is why in spite of all the bad news that bombards us, we continue to LEAN IN to the goodness and mercy of God with stubborn hope, faith, and love for what is unseen but being revealed in us. 

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. - Romans 8:18-25


by Jessica Ketola

​The Practicing Church is ON THE MOVE!!!

We are moving through Lent with prayer, fasting and generosity to the poor. And we are moving our Sunday gathering to One Cup Coffee. And much more than a move from one space to another, we are literally moving as a community on this transformational journey into the heart of our neighborhood. We are opening up wider and we are rooting down deeper.

Last Fall, I had a "holy discontent" that propelled our leadership team into a season of active listening and prayer for our next step as a community. For I was longing to create a place of hospitality in the neighborhood beyond our home that would be welcoming to the wider community. This is the Isaiah 61 call of the church: to be a transformational community that proclaims the good news of Jesus to the poor, brings freedom to those who are oppressed, and participates in the work of renewal in the earth.

So one morning in November I had what I believe was a divine appointment. As we were serving coffee, homemade quiche and cinnamon rolls at the THS Methadone Clinic on Aurora, I began to talk with Scott Sund from Bethany Community Church North. I shared how we wanted to be in a community space in the neighborhood and that we would love to worship in a space like One Cup Coffee. What I didn't know was that Scott had been in a discernment process of his own, praying about how the One Cup space could be used for more of God's kingdom purposes.

Surely the Spirit of God was on the move, out ahead of us!
​
And so after months of conversation, prayers and community discernment, we have seen the doors open wide. Bethany Community Church North is offering the space to us for free for the next 16 months (in Seattle, this is unheard of!). And the cafe reflects many of the attributes we are looking for in a third place. It is welcoming. It is communal. It is aesthetically pleasing. It is accessible. And so we are amazed at God's provision to us through the generosity of Bethany to be able to have a welcoming and visible presence in the neighborhood!

We will begin meeting on Sundays at One Cup Coffee on April 7th at 10:30am!

​We are being invited into a compelling story.

As I met again with Scott today, we were both reminded of our conversation in November and how the Spirit has been at work. As I listened to more of the story behind One Cup, I was in awe. It seemed like such a bold move for a growing community church who was looking for a meeting place to instead invest in the redemption of a dark place in the neighborhood. This kingdom vision is one that can only be born in prayer, and Scott is a praying man. And so they chose to be a part of the work of transformation and renewal in the neighborhood and to invest more in Monday through Saturday than Sunday. [Does this sound familiar? No wonder we have found ourselves aligned.]

For more of the story, check out these articles: 
* Church Moves into Former Colacurcio Strip Club 
* Bethany Community Church Gives Former Strip Club a Holy Purpose
​
We are being invited into a kingdom story.

A story of transformation. A story of community. A story of redemption. A story where we will have every opportunity to practice this radically inclusive gospel — to be a community that is welcoming to the poor, to our neighbors, to the spiritually hungry and to diverse communities. We will continue to root in the neighborhood, to care about this particular patch of earth and the flourishing of this community, joining in God's work of renewal here.   

And like all good kingdom stories, it will not be without difficulty or risk. We are leaving behind the comfort of our home to the foreign unknown of Aurora. We are leaving behind a private space to create a public space. We don't know what obstacles we will encounter, what strengths will be called forth, what darkness we will face or what gifts we will receive. For certain, our love will be tested. We aren't entirely sure it will work or if we will be back to where we started. We will have to experiment, learn and iterate. We know it is temporary and so we will be forced to keep journeying. But one thing we can be sure of...

​It will be a journey of transformation.

​That's because all Kingdom stories are transformative in nature. And while there is much we do not know, here's a few things we do:

We will journey together. 
We are the church, and it is obvious as we gather that God has brought us together with God's purposes in mind. And as I look around the room, I feel grateful beyond words.

We will continue to follow Jesus past our comfort zones into the radical way of love.
So much of the Jesus way challenges everything we know and hold dear. And yet we trust that as we surrender our fears, our preferences, our egos, and our need for control, we will receive gifts beyond our wildest imaginations. We will taste heaven here on earth as we become part of the beloved community where all are welcome, regardless of race, culture, gender, sexual-orientation or class.

The Spirit will be faithful to lead us on!
God has given us a compelling story, and it is still being written. God's faithfulness to us is stunning and we have every confidence that God will continue to lead us and guide us every step of the way.

​So, Spirit, move! Let heaven come to earth we pray!

We are inviting every one of you in this community to join us in prayer. Next week, we will gather in One Cup on Tuesday at 7pm to pray as a community in that space. We will participate in a community fast Tuesday through Thursday, and then of course, we are continuing to pray with Bethany and with the Northwest Vineyard Churches throughout the 40 days of Lent. We believe that this is a timely and important invitation to the practice of prayer and fasting as we make this transition as a community. So join in!


​by Jessica Ketola

I was recently asked to share my story at the Inhabit Conference on April 27-28, 2018 in Seattle and so thought I'd share it here as well.

This is my story of the foolish and audacious yes -- a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing in our community. And it is not for the faint of heart. But I believe that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, we are being asked to cross the threshold into the wilderness. To leave behind what is dead and lifeless and the systems of oppression to step into the new, into life and into freedom. To let go of our own small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.
 
foolish and audacious yes #1
Five years ago, my first foolish and audacious yes was to sign myself up for a program called Leadership in the New Parish. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never attended the Inhabit Conference. I didn’t really know much about the Parish Collective. All I knew was that I was desperate to find a way forward and to explore new practices and paradigms for church.
 
For I was well aware that our current models were for the most part failing us, and yet I was still very much immersed in them. At the time, I was the associate pastor of a small but vibrant Vineyard community church in Shoreline, Washington, where I also served as the director our local nonprofit, Turning Point. But while there were only a few of us who lived in the community where our church building was located, we had intentioned to be a presence for good in our neighborhood. We were following the missional conversation and longing to practice the way of Jesus. And so we did a lot of listening -- opening up our building to be a cold weather shelter, being a part of community round tables, starting a food bank giving garden, birthing a nonprofit, and investing in immigrant youth and families in the neighborhood. And yet in spite of all of this, we began to see that our model of church was actually at times working against us - working against the embodiment of our faith to live into the teachings of Jesus in a transformative way.
 
And so over the course of that year, I began to have a new imagination for what the kingdom could look like in my community and in my neighborhood and it set me on a trajectory that has forever changed the course of my life and of our faith community.
 
foolish and audacious yes #2
And so my second foolish and audacious yes was to the invitation of the Spirit to move into the neighborhood. We sold our home. We uprooted our family of 6. And we took some huge risks. Because we weren’t entirely convinced that this neighborhood stuff would really work in our suburban/semi-urban context. We didn’t look like many of the neighborhoods that were having success in more urban and walkable neighborhoods. But would it work here? And would we be able to transition our commuter church to have an imagination to root in our neighborhoods? Was this even possible?

Now I wish I could tell you that it all went glowingly after this. But as we journeyed to follow the Spirit into the unknown, we found that often life comes out of death. New paradigms are birthed out of disorientation. New assignments are born out of scattering and wilderness. This is the way of the Spirit, of transformation, of death and of birth.
 
And so our first attempts at neighboring were pretty much a flop. Who knew it was so hard to get to know your neighbors? We held barbecues in our front yard that no one came to. We baked cookies as offerings of friendship that were never returned. I have vivid images of my husband who would literally run after the neighbor’s car down our driveway just to say hello.
 
foolish and audacious yes #3
Our third foolish and audacious yes was to disrupt the status quo in our faith community. And this is where it got real. We were growing increasingly discontent with the way that our lived experience as the church was forming us and how irrelevant we seemed to our neighbors. So we entered a community discernment process and made the decision to move our regular Sunday service to a Sunday night dinner church and the whole thing blew up. I mean, for real. The ugly church stuff that those of you who have lived through are now having PTS symptoms just thinking of it, and half of our community left. I know this may not be exactly heartening to you. But it is what happened. It was horrible. Awful. I cried every day and at times, our lead pastor and I considered just giving up, throwing in the towel and going to work for Amazon. We felt disillusioned and disoriented, and yet somehow through it all, the Spirit sustained us.
 
foolish and audacious yes #4
It was less than a year later when I said my fourth foolish and audacious yes -- which was the biggest yet (you think I would have learned my lesson by now) -- but I said yes to step in as lead pastor. Utterly foolish after our beloved pastor of 20 years was forced to resign suffering from congestive heart failure. This was another huge blow. Utterly audacious to believe that there was still hope for our struggling and now traumatized congregation.
 
But I had this crazy good dream, this fire in my belly. You see I had no interest in doing church if it meant more of the same religious activity. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it. But this dream. Where our neighborhoods are pulled into shalom, seeking justice for those without power and privilege, where everyone across difference, race and class are coming together to seek the flourishing of our communities. The hope of seeing God revealed here in us, the body of Christ - where our neighbors begin to see that God is for them, where church is experienced around the table, and hopes are shared on the bus and the coffee shop and the community forums. This, this was compelling.

And so this is where the story gets crazy good. For we as the church are celebrating Eastertide and we know that there is life after death. And I have seen miracle upon miracle of this spirit of resurrection at work in our church and in our neighborhood. It has been just over one year since we re-launched The Practicing Church in our living room and I’m beginning to believe that this dream is actually possible. We have seen many miracles of the Spirit: sending us people across the country to join us; opening up housing so that we could live in proximity; miracles of finances and jobs in the neighborhood; miracles of friendships and shared life with our neighbors as we share a weekly meal together and connect over parties, fire pits and summer bbq's. And we are beginning to be a part of the fabric of care here, active in our neighborhood associations and schools, hosting a social justice book club, participating on diversity and equity task forces, breaking bread with our immigrant neighbors and continuing to be faithfully present to children and families through our after school tutoring program.  
 
And I feel like I’m home. I no longer feel the incongruence and disconnects of my former church experience. And while we are only just beginning to live into God’s dream, learning what it means to be faithfully present, it feels resonate and integrated in a way that I have never experienced before. And yet we still don’t know what it’s going to look like. We are staring into the darkness of the unknown, waiting for the Spirit to lead us on. But we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit is birthing something new in the church, inviting us to believe that there is a better way - to live as a beautifully diverse beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And so the question remains.
 
Will we be just foolish enough?

Just audacious enough?
​
To say yes?
 
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” -God Knows by Minnie Haskins

by Jessica Ketola

Today I want to share a recent post I contributed as a guest blogger at Kindred Magazine. This is a wonderful magazine of gifted writers, and I hope you will check out their musings.

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HOSPITALITY. I FEEL it may be a lost art. In the busy chaos of life, frenetic schedules, and individual pursuits, is there truly any space for opening our homes and our lives? Too few meals are shared with beauty, feasting, and wine over meaningful conversation that lingers on well into the night. But this makes sense. After cramming like a maniac to meet the deadline at work, surviving the two-year-old’s birthday party, running a load of laundry with what appears to be all the underwear one owns, somehow remembering to pay the AT&T bill that is five days overdue, and finally picking up a roasted chicken and bagged salad before collapsing in front of the latest episode of The Bachelor—is there really anything left?

And what about community and the sense that we are a part of something far bigger than ourselves? Sometimes I fear we have lost this as well. In the midst of a culture built on fierce individualism and personal freedom that trumps the common good. In the relentless barrage of technology and information that surely is a poor substitute for true friendship and connection. In the fragmentation of life where we often travel in isolation cages with wheels from garage to work and then back to garage again.

I find myself longing for the good old days. A place in time where everybody knows your name, where the pace of life slows, where conversations over meals are savored, and where there is dancing, storytelling, feasting, and laughter. Where communities gather regularly to share in worship, commerce, socials, barn raisings, and harvesting. Of course, I’ve never lived in such a time. My limited knowledge comes merely from the books I devoured as a freckle-faced, red-haired kid. Along with the delectable indulgence of watching my weekly allowance of television, which was either the more scandalous The Waltons or the more genteel Little House on the Prairie. My own history only goes as far back as the ’70s, but I guess I can thank my Jesus-crazed hippie parents and those formative years in the commune for my freakishly abnormal value for community. In fact, I don’t know how to do life any other way.

Going against the status quo might come from the hippie parents as well. For it bothers me that life today is organized around the economics of capitalism. At the expense of our own well-being, our children, our communities, not to mention those whose backs our “happiness” has been built upon. Don’t get me started. Just. Don’t get me started. From our food sources to our housing, healthcare, prisons, and education systems. It’s not that we are without the intellect, resources, or creativity to fix them. It is just that it simply costs too much.

But I fear my rant is dismal and bordering on the catastrophic when I consider myself to be an optimist. But this I do believe with all my heart. With all my hippie-loving-communal heart. In these uncertain times when we can’t help but feel disillusioned and demoralized with the constant onslaught of politics, injustice, war, and violence, there is one thing we can do.

One amazing, defiant, subversive thing.

Practice hospitality.

If you are looking to “stick it to the man” (and most likely you are in our current climate), get to know your neighbors. Yes, your actual neighbors. And no, I am not kidding. Even the neighbor in the sketchy house with the overgrown yard. Go over and introduce yourself. You might find out a thing or two, not the least of which that your elderly neighbor’s been ill and shut in. Get to know your neighbors—the master gardener next door, the plumber who insists on parking his truck in front of your house, and the single mom across the street. This simple act has the power to transform your community.

If you are hoping to make a difference in the midst of rampant racism, bigotry, and wall-building, welcome others different from you into your home. Share a meal and hear their stories. You just might find out that these new friends are the most courageous and resilient people you know. Invite the stranger. Welcome the outsider. It’s the most subversive act you can do.
​
If you are longing for meaning and connection, invite others to your table. Eat together. Share wine or a book or a cup of coffee. Feast together. Share a meal, share your presence, and share your life. Yes, this will require slowing down, saying no to some good things, letting go of perfection, and being vulnerable. But it’s worth it. Being present to others invites the best of what it means to be human. So go on and be subversive. Invite. Feast. Tell stories. Listen. Connect. Learn. Laugh. Empower. Transform.
Practice hospitality.

by Jessica Ketola

Last Sunday, Rose led us in a study and discussion in Luke 3 around John the Baptist, and it was a surprisingly fitting passage for this week with all the turmoil and heartbreak of the refugee ban and the volatile divisive political and religious climate that we find ourselves in. And one of the questions she raised was, “If John the Baptist was walking the streets of our neighborhoods today, what would he say to us?”
 
This was challenging to think about. To examine my own life and to reflect on what God might be asking of me. The comforts of my life in stark contrast to those of the refugee.
 
This was also true in the time of John the Baptist in the midst of increasingly volatile politics and unrest under the Roman oppression. In a time where practices of extortion, corruption and injustice were rampant. His words were cutting, harsh and yet astonishingly curious as the crowds came out to the desert to see what all the ruckus was about. John minced no words. He called the religious folks out, comparing them to snakes, imploring them to change their lives, not their outward appearances of religiosity. He called their bluff, saying just because Abraham is your father does not mean that you are children of God. What counts is your life.
 
And then he expounded on this, saying that what truly mattered were the practices and fruit of their lives. Were they green and blossoming or dead?  He didn’t speak to overturning the corrupt government but instead called them first to personal repentance. The crowd's response was, “Then what are we supposed to do? He responded, “If you have two coats, give one away,” he said. “Do the same with your food.” To the corrupt tax men, he told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.” To the soldiers serving in an unjust system under Herod, he told them to act justly, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.” John called them into a baptism of repentance, a life-change, reserved then for non-Jewish people converting to the Jewish faith. Apparently, the people of God had lost their way to the point that they were now in need of conversion, repentance and a recommitment to the way of God. The invitation was far beyond the hypocrisy of a religious title but to a radical life change marked by acts of generosity and justice.
 
Reading this today, I am convicted and I am grieved. Much like in the time of John the Baptist, I believe that religious folks like us and the church at large have profoundly lost our way. The disconnect being this - we no longer look like Jesus. Our lives no longer set apart by acts of justice and sacrifice. No longer worthy of inquiry or curiosity by the world because of our love for one another and for the extravagant welcome of the stranger. Often it is just the opposite.
 
But I believe that there is a prophetic call to the church right now - to prepare the way for God to act. To repent. To make a life-change. To commit to a shared life steeped in grace, justice, generosity, hospitality, love and sacrifice. And I believe that there is a growing sense sweeping all across the land longing for change. We are tired of doing life this way. And we are outraged and hurting, fed up with injustice. We want to do something. To be a part of something bigger than ourselves. To care for the vulnerable, the poor and the marginalized. To use our voices to join those of the oppressed and to fight for justice.
 
As The Practicing Church, I believe that now is the time to act. To repent. To change. To sacrifice. To begin to live deeper into the ways of Jesus.

May our hearts be moved with compassion.

In light of the refugee ban crisis and racial divides in our communities, I believe we are to welcome the stranger and work towards justice in our neighborhoods. Here are some resources and upcoming events here locally and I urge you to get involved!

• Radical Hospitality & Extravagant Welcome: I have blogged on this the past couple of weeks, but how can we extend friendship and hospitality as a subversive act of the kingdom.
• Talking to Kids About Race | Einstein Middle School | Feb 6th @ 6:30p: Parent Education workshop with Shoreline School District’s Equity & Family Engagement Director Tanisha Felder.
• Turning Point Community Meal | February 9th at 5pm: Share a meal with neighbors and Turning Point families and children. Bring a potluck dish to share and experience friendship with many of different culture, religion and socio-economic status. To learn more, read blog. Turning Point | 1315 N 160th Street, Shoreline, WA 98133
• How To Help Syrian Refugees in Seattle | The Seattle Globalist
• Faith & Race | Quest Church| Feb 12th @ 1:30p | Register here to explore questions of race, ethnicity, and identity in terms of what it means for us as followers of Christ and as people of God.
• Kingdom Come | Vineyard Seattle Area Gathering | Feb 25th | Training 1:30-4:30 | Worship Gathering 6:30p: Pray for God to move in our churches and communities, that we would truly be a people that embody the love of God, showing the world what God is like.
• When God Grew Tired of Us | What Life is Like For a Refugee | Movie Night & Discussion with Rose Swetman: February 27th at 6:30p
• Equity & Inclusion Conference | UW Bothell | February 24th 9a - 3:30p: Register
• A Letter from Phil Strout, National Director of The Vineyard on Refugee Crisis

 
This week, let us examine our lives and hold this question together, “If John the Baptist was out walking our neighborhoods today, what would his invitation of repentance or life-change be?”

by Jessica Ketola

Four years ago, when I began to explore what it might mean to live life with other followers of Jesus rooted in my neighborhood to join God’s work of renewal there, I wondered. Was this really possible? In our suburban/semi-urban context of Shoreline, Washington. In our church that in many ways looked like a traditional American church. Was this ever going to work?

And I have to admit I had my doubts along with a healthy dose of envy and insecurity. Like any good Enneagram Type 4, this is just to be expected. As I walked “hipper”, “cooler” or perhaps more “needy” neighborhoods with my Leadership in the New Parish cohort, I was in awe of how people were living together with this dream. To share life with others in an intentional way in a particular place. To join God there. To work towards a collective dream so that all would flourish. To be in it for the long haul. It just made sense. And all the things that I found to be incongruent or dissonant about the church started to find their home in the context of the neighborhood. The fragmented, broken pieces being fit together in this beautiful picture of what life in community was meant to be. Not the Utopia. But the stubborn hope of new creation popping up in the midst of the gritty and often difficult realities of everyday life. Where our hearts break as human suffering threatens to overwhelm us. And where our hearts ache with the beauty that persists even still. And it struck a chord in me that continues to reverberate.

By Jessica Ketola

This Advent, are you longing to be deeply rooted in community? In the last few weeks I have found much comfort and solace simply sharing a meal with friends around the warmth of our candle-lit table midst the long, dark days as the world seems to have lost its freaking mind. In the midst of a nation so polarized and divided, I think there is a growing hunger to be connected. In a culture suffering from deep fragmentation and ever-increasing isolation. Where we sit in front of screens instead of face to face. Where we walk down streets immersed in our own worlds, headphones in, never having to engage another soul. We travel in isolation cells on wheels from garage to work and then back to garage again. So many of us separated from extended family and support. So many of us experiencing the deep freeze of Seattle where friends are hard to find and neighbors are unknown. And so we wait. Hoping. Longing. Aching for more.
 
I don’t know about you, but often times I can stay ahead of the pursuing loneliness, staying busy and working hard, keeping up with the never-ending demands and checklists of life. But it catches up, doesn’t it? When you are least aware. When you have had a bad day and you feel like all the wind’s been knocked out of you. When you stop long enough to want to let down your hair and can’t think of someone you can shake it with. When the idyllic scenes of the Christmas season elude you, when broken families and dreams only bring heartbreak. This is when the bone-chilling ache of loneliness sets in.
 
We all are wired for connection. We need it to live. And we certainly need it to thrive. And I believe that our connection to community is absolutley imperative if we are to live full, meaningful lives. This is why I believe in the church. Not in the institution really or even in the current models that people seem to be leaving by the droves. No, I believe in the church in the context of the everyday and the local, the organic and the ordinary. In our neighborhoods and local communities. Where we can share life together as followers of Jesus embodying love in the practicalities of our everyday lives.
 
This is why I sold my home two years ago to move to the neighborhood in which I work and worship so that I could fully immerse myself in the renewal of my community.  This is why we share our house and live in proximity to other families in our faith community. This is why I am committed to fostering relationship with my neighbors, the city, the school district, and the low-income and immigrant families I work with. I believe in the goodness of community. Even more, I believe in the unrealized hope and potential of people of faith living in community. This is why I am so committed to the reformation of the church, to new creativity and experimentation as we seek to be people of peace and love.

And finally, this is why I am inviting you to join us as we begin a new journey and a new adventure, to discover what it means to more fully live into being a rooted community embodying the compassion of Jesus in the neighborhoods we live in.  

By Jessica Ketola
​
As we've been going through the book of Philippians, I have found myself feasting on the richness of this text. This morning as I was meditating again on Philippians 4, I was reminded of how important it is to ground ourselves in the goodness of God. To celebrate God all day, every day...to revel in Him as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message. I don't know about you, but this is not my natural default. Especially in the midst of anxiety-filled days and difficult circumstances. But we are reminded - the Lord is near. He is with us. And the instruction is simple. Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.

Don't you love that? How many of us need to be immersed in the peace of God where we are keenly aware that God is bringing His shalom, His wholeness, His healing and grace, working in our lives to bring everything together for good? How many of us need this peace of God to invade our anxiety, so that our spirits can settle down into this reality of the kingdom? What happens when we ground ourselves deeply into this goodness and grace? According to Paul, wonderful things happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Next week, we begin a new series, Grounded in Grace and we will explore this foundational truth of grace and the wonderful things that can happen as we root ourselves firmly into the goodness of God. We swim in waters of anxiety in our culture - worry, stress, doubt and cynicism. But Paul ends this passage with this exhortation. Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

So as the practicing church, let us put this into practice as Paul urges - today, this week and this month, let us journey together, knowing that as we do, God, who makes everything work together, will work us into his most excellent harmonies.

May you experience the peace that passes all understanding today.

Blessing 
When the path is simple, peace. 
When the way is complicated, peace. 
May Christ not only show you the way 
but also be the way you travel: 
way of blessing, way of peace.
*In the Sanctuary of Women: A Companion for Reflection and Prayer - Jan L. Richardson

Practice of Grounding
Find time this week (5-15 minutes) to simply hold God's goodness in your life. Spend some time recounting and remembering all that is good. Let praise and thankfulness well up from within. Then turn your attention to the anxiety in your life and give it words, form, shape. Now slowly turn your heart and mind back to God's goodness. Go back and forth until you can hold them together. What changes? What pictures, words, emotions come up? Note or journal the exchange. End your time ruminating again on the goodness and grace of God, imagining yourself like a tree, with roots going down deep into the earth, drawing nourishment and sustenance for your soul. Practice daily and see what roots begin to grow.

by Jessica Ketola

This week I am reminded of the gift of presence. Whether in times of celebration, accomplishment and joy or in times of heartbreak, illness or loss -- what do we long for most but for those we care about to show up. And to show up big, right? If you are human and still walking the planet, the odds are high that you have suffered the pain of planning a party that no one comes to or having a win go unacknowledged or uncelebrated. If you still have a pulse, you most likely have had days when you were bursting with excitement to share your news with someone, ready to paint the town red only to find out that everyone else was busy, preoccupied and there would be no dancing in the streets after all.

How much more, then, in our most profound times of need, disappointment and loss, do we need to look into the faces of those who have chosen to show up, offering the gift of their presence? Just the mere fact that they are here speaks volumes: the vibration of their voice, the comfort of their embrace, the assurance in their eyes, the fragile emotion reflected back to us in their faces - all visceral signs that we are not alone. We are seen, known and loved. No matter what we face, it is somehow less egregious if we face it together. Presence. The gift of presence. We simply cannot underestimate the power of showing up.

Jesus did not call us merely to a Sunday gathering. Though if He did, some of us would be in trouble. God knows we have a hard time committing a couple of hours a week in service to Him -- a sad commentary on our individualistic and consumerist culture. However, the Call of Christ is far beyond the weekly gathering, far beyond our compartmentalized and fragmented lives and far beyond us as individuals. Rather, it is a call to awaken to a whole new life - this "eternal" life that Jesus spoke of which sadly has been co-opted to mean some existential existence in the great by and by. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it is a whole new kind of life, a new way of being alive in the world and being awake to God and His presence with us. A whole new way of doing life, of showing up, where love is the greatest commodity, people the greatest gifts, relationship and connection the greatest healers, and community the greatest force of good in the world. Where our timid "I's" become a powerful "We" and we are caught up in the greatest Story of love, grace and redemption that the world has ever known. And so I ask you, will you show up? Will you be the church? Will you awaken to the life that you were created to live?

As the practicing church, we are not trying to appease or cater to the dominant narrative of the gospel, the often compartmentalized, dualistic, consumerist, individualistic and thus small vision of what church looks like today. Rather, we are praying, groaning, wrestling and longing for the gospel to be reinterpreted holistically in our day, in our time, in our neighborhoods and places of work, in our faith community and in our lives -- to be good news. We are actually praying and longing along with many sincere and passionate Jesus followers today for the reformation and restoration of the church. This is not for the faint of heart or the casual onlooker. It will require us to show up and to show up big - to awaken to a whole new way of life. It will cost us everything and yet we are promised a new kind of life, a full life, a life of abundance. I hope that you will join us in this pursuit, that you will show up and offer the greatest gift you have to offer - the gift of your presence.